Australia v South Africa... its not Cricket

Hi Greg

Thought I

Hey bill good to hear from you. If I tell all my buddies here in South Africa that I am assiting an aussie I will be in big trouble! Just kidding. I can see a small problem with your cooling system. With the poor natural airflow over the radiator you have to make sure that the fan moves air over the whole radiator. You can do this by fabricating a shroud for the fan. I would recomend that you do this just on the one side. I would also recomend that you put the thickest radiator you can find. I am currently running a single fan with a very crude shroud. This shows an indicated 95 degrees C which is a little hotter than I would like. You are probably going to mount the charge cooler in front of the radiator so the pushing fan won't work.

I am busy fabricating a fibreglass shroud with 2 10" fans. these fans just about cover the entire radiator which will make a difference.

One other tip I can offer is to drill a 5mm hole in the themostat. This will assist in letting you fill the cooling system without having airlocks. I also raised the expansion tank (standard Skooby) up a bit. I am not sure if you could drill a hole in the thermostat in a cold environment but in South africa I don't see this as a big problem.

I had a small problem today one of my cooling pipes returning the water tothe engine from the radiator slipped of. Fortunatly one of my staff was riding behind me and I pulled of within 100m of the pipe coming off so no damage was done. what I am going to do is to weld a lip on the end of all of the pipes so that it can't happen again

Hi Greg thanks for the advise on the radiator.
I will take your comments on board, also the clue to drill the bleed hole in the thermostat is a good one. Where have you run your font to back water pipes ? sounds like you were lucky picking up the water leak so quickly, well done, regards the welding the lip on the pipes, I recall seeing in Polly pipe joiners and some copper / brass pipe joins called a collet ( see pic ) if you can get the right size you could silver solder this onto your pipes

I moved the WRX motor into the work shed today and started removing some of the accessories, can you tell me what are the issues involved in reversing the inlet manifold ?

My trip to the wrecker sourcing fans may have just paid dividends, was trying to think of a way to get air flow through the intercooler, and I have now come up with a simple way of mounting one of the fans inside the boot lid beneath the air intake grill, I think will be quite effective and will assist with engine cooling
( I may be able to post a pic tomorrow on this one )

Regards Bill

Just a quick follow up with the pics of the fan mounted in the engine bonnet and one of the wiring with fuse and relays...

the build continues......... Bill

Hi Bill.
Thanks for the update, I picked up an oil cooler over the week end and I have decided to mount it under the boot lid. I am going to use braided hoses and mount an electric fan. I am not sure whether to suck the air through the boot vent or to blow it out. does any body know which direction the natural airflow is through the boot grill. I would emagine an aircooled motor pulls the air through by virtue of the engine fan.

where are you going to mount your charge cooler or inter cooler?

By the way I am back to th drawing board regarding the clutch. I drove the car on the high boost over the weekend and I am afraid the copper puck clutch is not up to the task! Even pulling of the line gently and then flooring the car in first gets the clutch slipping and again in second and third (I am to scared to try fourth! which willbe worse)

What sort of clutch arrangements do the guys use in a high horsepower setup with the beetle gearbox.

I am considering having a new fly wheel manufactured and fit a bigger stronger pressure plate and maybe a copper clutch plate. I am not crazy about the idea of the copper clutch as it is pretty awkward in traffic.

wow that looks nice.................

Hay mate thats bad news on the clutch, I

Marius ran the stainless tubes down th centre of the car, i will probably have a look at running them down th sides of the car, you have to be carefull that you don't have too many ups and downs on the pipes to make bleeding the system easier. this does bring the problem of routing the pipes through the front wheel well and could introduce a clearance problem. the pipes hangingdown under the car are no lower than the sump of the motor so its not such a big problem.

With regards to turning the inlet manifold around its just a case of removing the injectors and all pipes and turn it around. my motor has the idle compensator removed and closed of with a plate. If you have a close look at the picture of the motor I emailled to you you will see which pipes are used. A lot of the excess points on the manifold have been cut off and polished smooth.

Maybe what you should do is to leave all of the mounting points on the manifold until you have the motor up and running and then remove the extra mounting points. The last thing you want to do is to cut of a mounting point and then find that you need it.

The water manifold was turned through 180 degrees so that the water pipe is attached to the motor on the right side, this did involve cutting of the pipe that goes to the radiator and re-welding it into place at the correct angle. I personally did not do this but i saw that Marius did it.

I will take some photos and post them soon

good luck

Thanks Greg, just got in new crystal headlamps with LEDs around the rim, cosmetic but I like the effect.
Motor out tomorrow. Bill